Memeorandum

October 25, 2013

Noonan On ObamaCare

Peggy Noonan discusses ObamaFail and offers an important caveat to those drawing analogies to that earlier classic of technological hubris meeting nemesis, namely, the Titanic:

...in fairness, the Titanic at least had three good days...

Good point!

As to the inevitable death spiral, the bad news is that a case can be made for optimism (that's bad becasue it means that denial is an option). The death spiral argument is that only the sickest will have the motivation to crack the ObamaFail code and get themselves covered. Since the insured pool will skew old and sick, insurers will take a bath in 2014 since they based their rates on a projected pool that included more of the young, hale and hearty. Come 2015 they will charge higher rates, the less-sick among the few who bought insurance will be deterred by the higher prices, and the death spiral will be underway.

Well, maybe. But the rate setting process is meant to be forward-looking, based on the likely future experience. Past experience is one useful guide for making that estimate, but if - IF! - insurers can be convinced that 2014 was anomalous due to the failed website, they might be inclined to re-offer 2014-level pricing in 2015 even though 2014 is likely to be a money-loser. This would be different from the death spiral experienced in New York when it adopted community rating, where insurers could look to the future and not see it being notably different from the past.

And this may amount to predicting yesterday's news today, but Obama For America morphed into Organizing For America and ought to re-brand for 2014 as Enrolling For America (or, Enroll America). If Team Obama offered to make their e-mailing lists and outreach abilities available to market health insurance, that might help bring in some gullible, idealistic youth.

SMILE AND THE WORLD SMILES WITH YOU... UNTIL REALITY ARRIVES. The NY Times reprises the rosy September forecasts made by Team Obama. The word "cakewalk" does not appear, but late in the story the politics get a mention:

Some Democrats said that, given the Republican assault on the measure,
the White House was right to deliver upbeat presentations promoting it.

“To downplay expectations would have fed into the Republican narrative,”
said Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the
Democratic leader, who attended a session in the Roosevelt Room of the
White House with other allies of the administration.

Well, sure, but the website was due to be experienced by millions in early October; September spin was bound to be overtaken by events.

Comments

'If a group under siege can demonstrate “that there has been a conspiracy, which has transformed politics and society,” the British writer David Aaranovitch, astutely observed in Voodoo Histories, then they can convince themselves that “their defeat is not the product of their own inherent weakness or unpopularity, let alone their mistakes,” but is instead “due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy.” '

"If Team Obama offered to make their e-mailing lists and outreach abilities available to market health insurance, that might help bring in some gullible, idealistic youth."

Good luck with that. The gullible 20somethings may go out and vote when bombarded with OFA social media, extracting $3000+ from them for something they don't want--under penalty of an IRS tax-- is another matter. The social media will soon be filled with the fact that the Dems want to 20somethings to pay for subsidized healthcare for their no-work cohorts or OLD PEOPLE. Obama is treating them like the meatsacks in The Matrix. Yes I do believe many of them become persuadables.

"Therefore, the only way that they can collect the penalty or the fine is by taking money from your refund. If you are not owed a refund, they cannot get money from you. They can't issue a lien. They can't garnish your wages. They can't use any of the normal procedures available to them if you owe them money, even though the Supreme Court has said it's a tax. So for those of us -- I mean, folks, I'm in fat city. I'm in fat city because I always structure to where I owe money. Well, not entirely. There have been years. But if you structure your taxes so that you do not get a refund, you do not have to buy insurance and you do not have to pay a fine 'cause they can't collect it from you if you don't have a refund due. And that is just another nail in the coffin of Obamacare imploding on itself. "

" But if you structure your taxes so that you do not get a refund, you do not have to buy insurance and you do not have to pay a fine 'cause they can't collect it from you if you don't have a refund due. "

Oh, this is beautiful. I haven't been to Ace's since CBSgate. Commenter 68:

"I am thwarting ObamaCare with my mind-thoughts. The bad things I am thinking about ObamaCare are being transformed into a force, undetectable by current science, that infiltrates and permeates all of the processes of ObamaCare, causing it to crash harder than the Titanic.

PS: TomM what makes you think insurers will wait until 2015? There are ongoing renewals during 2014, as the Death Spiral becomes clear in the next few months, Exchange Insurers will hike rates for Individual/group plans to make up for Exchange losses-- Widow and Orphan shareholders in the Insurers must be protected!. Pre-Existing Insureds will see outsized rare hikes during 2014 is my guess.

Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States is demanding that Senator Ted Cruz apologize for comments in which he joked that it seems like “Nigerian e-mail scammers” have been running the dysfunctional Healthcare.gov website.

Actually, the Ambassador has a point: at least Nigerian e-mail scammers can write code that works.

NK, Insurers are trapped by state regulators when changing prices.. What you will see is more insurers exit markets where state regulators by the unicorn fart forecasts. (Shaping the battlefield for single payer vs revolution).

Advance fee fraud - also called “419 fraud” after the specific section of Nigerian law describing this type of fraud – has evolved considerably over the years. Originally, fraud artists in Nigeria would send an unsolicited but official-looking business proposal on bank or company letterhead to an unsuspecting U.S. citizen’s postal mailbox.

Henry-- I think that's 2 sides of the same coin. As fewer insurers remain in a state market, and the products they offer are frozen in amber by ObummerCare mandates, by necessity what happens to rates with fewer providers-- State Insurance Dept regulation or not?

Clarice-- Generally I side with the incompetence analysis, but this time Occam's Razor tell me the design-fail is the intention. Why?-- well both Obummer and Harry Reid have said so for instance. Megan is just trying to not lose her DC Media cocktail party priviliges.

Just for the record, I'd like to point out that the real problem with Obamacare is not that it's an unworkable, unwieldy and inefficient government program destined to make life worse for everyone . . . it's that it's all of the above, and "paid for" with two trillion dollars of borrowed money.

Was there a Blofeld-ish plot designed to go directly from Obamacare to the NHS in 19 easy, secret steps, like some sort of fancy domino trick? I doubt that.

Did the people who actually wrote the law understand the likely (or certain) effects on the insurance market and insurance companies (death spiral, etc)? How could they not have?

As has been pointed out here numerous times, hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people have lost already or will lose their employer-provided insurance in the next year. The exchanges are a disaster, and look doomed to failure.

But what happens then? It's not going to just magically reset to how things were before October 1st, 2013. There will be millions of people who want health insurance and will find that they won't be able to get it at anything like the prices they had pre-Obamacare.

What happens then? Especially with a President who has demonstrated, over and over and over and over that he has no regard whatsoever for the Constitution, or separation of powers; and no respect for either Congress or for the American people? And who has time after time after time used executive orders to do things that we would have previously considered unthinkable?

No, not buying McArdle's happy-talk spin. To tell the truth, I'm pretty unimpressed with her generally. But at least, I'm sure, she still gets invited to Ezra Klein's and Matt Yglesias's parties, so it's all good.

I find it highly unlikely the website was designed to fail to usher in single payer.

There is a simple way to determine if it was.
Any problem can be fixed with enough dough and these guys own the biggest bakery the world has ever known.
If the thing is never fixed then perhaps it was by design.
If it is fixed then obviously it wasn't a plot but merely our idiot overlords again.

Just to clarify. I don't think that the websites were deliberately designed to fail as part of some grand conspiracy. I'm perfectly happy to chalk THAT up to incompetence, graft and so forth.

But Obamacare as a whole is definitely designed to wreck the insurance market and pave the way for single-payer. I don't see how anyone can honestly doubt that, especially given that we have people like, say, Harry Reid, and, oh, Barack Obama, talking about how Obamacare is just the first step towards the single-payer system they want to see.

Not sure I'm buying what Megan is selling. Democrats have said all along that O-care was a weigh station on the road to single payer. No conspiracy needed. The cock-up with the roll out might make that goal harder but the USG caused the housing bubble and we got stuck with TARP-ownership stakes in a clutch of banks, gses, and a few car companies. Insurers are canceling policies and exiting markets, not sure that a few are so badly run they would collapse Lehman like, but I think it is naïve to discount the possibility that the ACA was failing on schedule.

ObamaCare is not doable, and yet it was done by hook and crook in 2009-2010, and remains in effect. A workable Singlepayer is not doable, but when has that stopped socialists from imposing unworkable singlepayer all over Europe and Canada? Rhetorical question, it hasn't. If Obamacare fouls the for profit Healthcare insurance business, doesn't that help impose SinglePayer by more crook? It does, and I think that's what they are doing.

but with big government it projects, more money thrown at it will make the problems worse. and damn, the Obama Administration can't keep it a secret that he was spying on some 35 world leaders and that we have cooperation agreements with others...all delivered to Russian and above the fold in the British press. And these dumbasses think the Ocare site is all just a technical problem to be smoothed over.

From Gerahty today, a good explanation of why tactics are vital and must match up with today's electorate, not the 1980 pre Kennedy Immigration wave nativist view of the nation:

"In other words, the problems the country faces are really different from 1980, and thus the solutions have to be different. The principles and goals are the same – creating liberty; limiting the power, scope, and cost of government; ensuring strong families and communities -- but we can't use the same playbooks -- unless the Democrats start running Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale again."

I feel very privileged today: The JEF will be coming down our street either to or from Central Park. Every parked car on our block was towed and barricades were put up. Apparently he is attending two fundraisers in Manhattan. Who is paying for all of the security?

He's also going to Brooklyn to visit some school (presumably as a cover so that the taxpayers pay for the trip), which is resulting in the closure of Prospect Park among other things, a park that is almost as large as Central Park.

The Mullahs will announce that they have the Bomb and a working deliver system probably the day after Iran's Revolutionary Guardsman general assumes the office of OPEC Pres, that same day, Putin announce Russia joins OPEC, and the Iranian nukes are under the Soviet....ehr I mean....Russian nuclear umbrella. The day after that, the KSA announces that it has a functioning Bomb. Erdogan will then make the decision that will shape Eurasian strategic politics for a generation. Does the MB/Turkey side with the KSA as a Sunni block against Shia expansionism, or does he side with the Mullah-Putin axis? Crazy days coming.

CBS: ObamaCare forcing millions to lose their insurance.
Dan Rather once so nettled Nixon he compelled Nixon to say to him "Are you running for something?"
Rather is still alive and there are thousands of other "journalists" around the country who were inspired by his challenge to the president.
Is there not one of them including the preposterous Rather himself who has the minimal integrity to ask this cynical popinjay thumbing his nose at the entire world why he should get away with lying through his teeth that "if you like your current health plan you can keep it"?
Has there ever been a more obvious and blatant broken promise? Surely there must have, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

Even in a hive there must be an occasional renegade bee that decides enough is enough and he's not spending his life as a slave to the queen.

Since we know the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups was a glitch and not something more nefarious, and the NSA spying on foreign leaders is pure speculation from 35 sovereign nations, we should discount any ideas that this administration might have planned on certain outcomes on their signature legislation.
That would be too vast...

Of course we're heading for single payer. They don't care how we arrive at that destination, only that like a herd of cattle, once we're in that pen, they can brand each accordingly and cull whomever they see fit.

I am convinced the biblical word wicked was created for the Democrat party.

Powers has been a supporter of the ObamaCare concept from its inception, but Powers does at least allow reality to intrude on her thinking. After nearly three weeks of incompetence and dishonesty on display from the Obama administration, Powers started expressing considerable skepticism about the ACA and its rollout.

nobody talked to anybody else about substantial activities at the IRS and the NSA

Many people talked about it at the time and since, and wrote e-mails about it. When should we expect to see the e-mails and witnesses describing the intent to have this thing fail? (About the same time someone comes forward to blow the lid off the BC conspiracy.)

Whether they did it by design or not, I'm beginning to think that the problems with Obamacare are not fixable. How, for instance, do you design a health insurance data base that is compatible with a multitude of other federal agencies' data bases, each with their own unique design? Hell, as I discovered when my father died, the SSA San Francisco data base isn't even compatible with the SSA Kansas City data base, within the same government agency.

And that's before you even address the looming problems of millions losing the insurance that they had, the escalating prices and the shortage of doctors. They will have no choice but to start cranking up rationing and death panels, and soon. Wonder how Julia will feel about OBAMAcare the day her beloved mother is sent home to die of breast cancer?

My main disagreement with McArdle is what she uses as her definition of 'failure' and also 'single payer'.

It's pretty much stating the obvious that the website failures were not in any way intentional though they might have been predictable. What most people who were making the argument that Obamacare would lead to single-payer meant was that the combination of the insurance requirements in the PPCA (pre-existing condition coverage, expanded coverages, rising mimimum claim payments as a percentage of premiums collected, etc) would make our current form of health insurance in the US financially unsustainable. There would be no grand public failure, just the goverment python getting a tighter and tighter grip on any organization that finances health care until they were squeezed into something like the current state of public service utilities. Once the regulations were in place then the fact that Aetna or BC/BS does all the dirty work is immaterial - HHS would be calling all the shots regarding allowable procedures and reimbursement via internal regulations ala Medicare/Medicaid.

Reading RSE's book has me thinking of the Medicaid expansion (the really, really "successful" segment of BOzocare to date) as conditioning of the pecking droolers for single payer. They're going to meet the python with a warm smile.

He's also going to Brooklyn to visit some school (presumably as a cover so that the taxpayers pay for the trip)

That school, P-Tech Early College HS, is affliated/spnsored by IBM and has an IT focus. BOzo will be stopping by to offer "remarks". The school is overwhelmingly black. I bet any entering freshman knows more about IT than BOzo ever will.

P-Tech must also be a Charter School (CUNY and IBM affiliation), I wonder if with only 104 students it shares space within another Bd of Ed building. Commie DeBlasio wants to put those charters out of business by charging rent for the Bd of Ed space they use. Charters work fairly well in NYC, they take kids and parents who want to learn out of the large HS penetentiaries and puts them in smaller schools with other kids who want to learn. So of course the Commies want to put Charters out of business.

I don't think it is a charter school, but it is some kind of public-private partnership thing. It apparently is also controversial because it pushed out a failed school that Bloomberg closed. DeBlasio is opposed to closing schools, though apparently he's still going to try to photobomb the JEF's visit.

I think many progs (such as Harry Reid) have been quite forthcoming that single disburser and a 100% socialized health care system is the ultimate goal. The issue is which way will the US go in reaction to the 404Care mess. If there is a conspiracy, the conspirators have been open about their conspiracy.

The only thing Barack Obama knows how to do is be Barack Obama. He thinks that's his job, like a king whose only real responsibility is to be kingly. The problem is that the one person (who matters, at least) who doesn't understand this is Barack Obama. As he once said, Obama believes his own bull***t. Charlie offers some good examples of Obama's own Olympian self-regard. For instance:

"I think I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," Obama told him. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

Though I immediately thought of this bit from New York magazine:

Emanuel's ad-hocracy, meanwhile, didn't faze Obama. The president's friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett sometimes pointed out that not only had he never managed an operation, he'd never really had a nine-to-five job in his life. Obama didn't know what he didn't know, yet his self-confidence was so stratospheric that once, in the context of thinking about Emanuel's replacement, he remarked in all seriousness, "You know, I'd make a good chief of staff."

Those overhearing the comment somehow managed to suppress their laughter.

Obviously, Obama always has a healthy ego, in the same way Godzilla had a healthy physique and the sun has a healthy mass. But part of the problem stems from the fact that he cannot see the difference between campaigning and governing. That would be bad enough, if it were not for the fact that Obama seems to think that he ran his campaign. As I noted the other day in the Corner, here's Obama's response to the charge that Sarah Palin had more executive experience than he did:

Barack Obama: Well, you know, my understanding is that, uh, Governor Palin's town of Wasilly [sic] has, uh, 50 employees, uh, uh, we've got 2,500, uh, in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. Uh, uh, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Uh, so I think that, uh, our ability to manage large systems, uh, and to, uh, execute, uh, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years. Uh, and certainly, in terms of, uh, the legislation that I've passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina, uh, of how we handle emergency management. The fact that, uh, many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place, uh, as we speak indicates the extent to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.

The remarkable thing about this is that there's no real executive experience in his explication of his executive experience. Yes, the candidate can fire people from the campaign. But being the candidate and being the campaign manager are as different as being the lead singer for Spinal Tap and being the band's manager. On the campaign trail, Obama's job was to "be Barack Obama," to sound smart and charismatic and rev up the crowds. He's still playing that part rather than fulfilling the job description.

And no one will tell him. That's why, I suspect, when he went to check on the progress of the site's development he had no idea how to ask questions that would get at the reality of the situation. Bureaucrats, apparatchiks, and contractors blow smoke. That's what they do. Obama has no idea how to cut through the smoke. He thinks being president involves constantly going out and giving speeches to crowds that love him about how hard he's working rather than actually, you know, working. It's all very meta. He's playing president Obama because he doesn't know how to be president Obama. I think that when he went out on Monday and did his infomercial schtick in the Rose Garden -- Operators are standing by! It's not just a website; it's a floorwax! etc. -- he honestly thought he was fixing the problem. Well, I've done my part!"

I'm completely on board with the statements that single payer was, and is, the goal. But the mind numbing ineptitude displayed in the website rollout in conjunction with how it negatively impacts people was vastly unexpected. If played right by the GOP (don't laugh too hard) this could drive a stake into the shrunken heart of lib aspirations.

It's certainly been helped by Preznit ADD's lack of any interest in any of the well known problems and abrogation of any executive responsibility. Where are all the toadies who were giving him savior-like characteristics when his only interests are golf, fundraisers (who is dumb enough to invest one honest cent in this clown?) and Sportcenter.

But the mind numbing ineptitude displayed in the website rollout in conjunction with how it negatively impacts people was vastly unexpected.

I tend to agree, but the downside is that it distracts from the real problems with Obamacare, which are already being felt but are getting either confused with or overshadowed by the website debacle. Then if and when the website works, the LIVs will be so grateful to their overlords for the snappy cool website that they will not realize that it's like a big phishing scam.

CaptH-- I honestly believe that the Website debacle, while helpful in making the point that Lefties are a business joke, will be small potatoes as compared with the substance of ObummerCare. The substance will be notices to hundreds of thousands more that their insurance won't be renewed b/c of ACA, and notices to MIllions that 2014-2015 rates will have to go up because of 'costs' to participate in Exchanges, and the fact that virtually all of the new enrollees are medicaid, subsidy or seriously ill; no sane healthy people buy ExchageCare-- that will be a WTF moment for soft ObamaVoters, and should anger millions enough to become anti-Dem voters. I honestly believe that.